Spilled Ink Studios - 2D Artists Wanted

by Corwin, 2006-12-17 00:43:37

While this is not part of our usual coverage, I thought people might be interested. Ian (Tiberius) Frazier, the man behind Lazarus has formed a new company Spilled Ink Studios and they are wanting 2D artists for a Platform game they are making called Once Upon A Monkey.

Here's a few details about the game:

The game is a 2d platformer, a la Super Mario Brothers and Sonic the Hedgehog. What makes it different from them is:

1.) The art direction is hand-drawn. Everything is meant to look as if it's been drawn (as indeed it has). At key points in the story, different elements (monsters, obstacles, etc.) get "drawn in" or "erased out" in response to what the narrator is saying. Because....

2.) ...the narrator is a young boy. See, the entire game world is in the imagination of a child, who is telling a very odd story to you, the player. So just when things seem to be going great in the game, he may throw you a curve ball (as kids tend to do) by making something totally bizarre and over-the-top happen. For instance, you may run across another small monkey (except this one's evil) in the game world, and the narrator would say "And he found a bad monkey." A moment pauses, then the narrator continues "A BIG bad monkey!" and the monkey gets scribbled out and redrawn as a gigantic gorilla. "....with guns!" and guns get drawn onto the gorilla. "....ROCKET guns!" and little missiles sprout out of all the gun muzzles. That sort of thing.

3.) Our main character is a monkey. Monkeys are inherently awesome.

4.) Because of the zany story-told-by-a-child concept, our levels are extremely diverse, ranging from the dark floor of the ocean to the deepest reaches of outer space.

5.) Unlike in most platformers, our game is actually meant to tell a story (beyond simply "save the princess!").

6.) One of the first items the player gets is a yo-yo which serves as a grappling hook, allowing an unconventional means of movement throughout the world.

7.) We're augmenting the normal action-based platformer gameplay with puzzle elements reminscent of the old school Lucasarts adventure games.

The downside, is that it's currently not a paid position:-

This project is being developed by Spilled Ink Studios, LLC, a new independent game development company recently formed by three game industry veterans (including myself). As we are entirely self-funded, no salary is available for any member of the team at present; however, all members of the team have a stake in profit-sharing for the project. So if you join this project and stick with it to the end, you WILL be paid--how much you get paid will depend on how much the game sells, which depends on how awesome it is. ...and I assure you, it will be awesome.